Scaled advice should not be seen as a separate form of advice and will be subject to the same rules as personal advice, ASIC said yesterday.
This principle would be reflected in the yet-to-be-released new guidelines for scaled advice, ASIC investment managers and superannuation senior executive leader Ged Fitzpatrick said.
"The guidance is expected to make the following points: ASIC thinks that advice is scaleable to some extent," Fitzpatrick said at the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia Super Compliance Summit in Sydney.
"There are not two clear types of advice: holistic and scaled. This is an important point to make.
"It should be made very clear that there is no separation between holistic and scaled, and similar between scaled and intra-fund [advice].
"All [what applies to] personal advice should also apply to scaled advice, including the best interest duty. Best interest applies regardless of scale."
He said he had been asked questions about whether scaled advice or intra-fund advice would be subject to less stringent rules than personal advice, and although that would not be the case, the regulator believed it would still be possible to offer a more commoditised version of advice services.
"ASIC thinks it is possible to provide less complex advice that is consistent with the best interest duty and we will provide some examples, which, for example, are the fact-finding enquiries for less complex advice," he said.
He also pointed out the new rules for intra-fund advice would be quite different from the existing class order 09/210, dealing with relief for super funds from the requirements in section 945A of the Corporations Act regarding suitable advice.
"The new intra-fund is more about collective [fee] charging and we think there is a potential of a review of how these type of fund arrangements will apply with regards to the [opt-in] arrangements and these will need to be made clear," he said.
